F. Hopkinson Smith

“ Beating the bush with allusions to sinking vessels, collisions at sea, suits for salvage, and the like only flushed up such reminiscences as fall to the lot of seafaring men the world over—but nothing more. ”

“ Women sank on their knees, and hugged their children, and a sudden peace and stillness possessed every soul on board. Tearing a life-preserver from the man nearest him and throwing it overboard, he backed the coward ahead of him through the swaying mob, ordering the people to stand clear, and forcing the whole mass to the starboard side. ”

“ With a threat to throw overboard any man who stirred, he dropped into the engine-room, met the engineer half way up the ladder, compelled him to return, dragged the mattresses from the crew's bunks, stripped off blankets, racks of clothes, overalls, cotton waste, and rags of carpet, cramming them into the great rent left by the tug's cutwater, until the space of each broken plank was replaced, except one. ”

“ Marrows was on the little harbor dock, peering through the twilight when his sloop dropped anchor. Captain Joe held the tiller. He began as soon as Marrows's gaunt figure outlined against the evening sky caught his eye:
"I tell you, old man, Captain Barrett ain't fittin' to fool round that rock. He 'll get hurt. I tell you he ain't fittin'." ”

“ Gradually an accumulation of old rope, blocks, chains, diving-gear, and odds and ends of wrecker's outfit were heaped up on the small dock below the cottage, where a "shanty," vacated by some fishermen, served as a store-house.
As the work on the lighthouse progressed the force and plant increased. A steam-tug was added, stone-sloops were chartered, and the gradual filling up of the interior of the foundation began. ”

“ Before the first December gale broke on the rock the derricks were stripped of their rigging and left to battle with the winter's storms, the tools were stowed in the shanty, and all work was suspended until the spring. During the long winter that followed Captain Joe took to the sea, having transferred his diving-gear to the sloop; and before April three coal-laden schooners were anchored, or stranded, as befitted their condition, on the shoals in front of his dock in the village harbor. ”

“ The next day being stormy, with a gale outside and no work possible, Captain Joe tightened up the shrouds of the disabled sloop himself, reset the mast, lecturing Barrett all the while, and then sent word to Marrows that she was "tight as a keg, better'n ever, and everythin' aboard, 'ceptin' the bony fisherman who was out of a job." ”

“ No. Smothered in his divin'-dress, with a dumb fool at the other end of his life-line. We wuz to work on the Scotland, sunk in six fathoms of water off Sandy Hook. The president sent for me to come to the city, and I left Jim alone. That week we wuz workin' in her lower hold, Jim and me, I tendin' and Jim divin', and then I goin' below and he lookin' out after my air hose and line. Me bein' away that day, they put a duffer at the pump. Jim got his hose tangled up in a fluke of the anchor, they misunderstood his signals, and hauled taut when they should have eased away. ”

“ In the shanty which was built on the completed part of the work, and which sheltered the working force for the three years of this section of the construction, were gathered that night a crew of a dozen men, many of whom had served with Captain Joe when Jim was alive. ”

“ In despair I put the question straight at him.
"Tell him, Captain Joe, of that morning in the ice off Hoboken, when you boarded the ferry-boat."
He would, but he had 'most forgotten, been so long ago. So many of these things a-comin' up when a man's bangin' round, it's hard to keep track on 'em. Remembered there wuz a mess of people aboard, mostly women and babies, and they wuz all a-hollerin' to wunst. He wuz workin' on the Reliance at the time—captain of her. ”